The news of the settlement signals Karen McDougal will be able to more freely talk about her claims without fear of legal repercussions for violating the terms of the deal. | Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Ex-Playboy model will sue Trump if he calls her a liar, her attorney says

Former Playboy model Karen McDougal has proof of her alleged affair with Donald Trump, and is prepared to sue the president if he calls her a liar, McDougal’s lawyer said Thursday.

“There is evidence and there are plenty of witnesses who were around at the time who know that this happened,” attorney Peter Stris told MSNBC. “The question is not, ‘Did the relationship happen?’ But, ‘What happened afterwards? What was the cover-up? Was she manipulated?’ And that's what this lawsuit has always been about.”

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McDougal and American Media Inc., owners of the National Enquirer tabloid, reached a settlement Wednesday that will free her from a contract that barred her from openly discussing her alleged affair with Trump, according to court documents.

She sued in March to be released from an agreement that gave the Enquirer exclusive rights to her story about alleged romantic encounters with Trump — a story they never published — which effectively kept her silent about the relationship.

“Karen got to this point because there is a number of people … in her orbit who didn't have her best interests in their heart,” Stris said, citing the cozy relationship between McDougal and adult-film actress Stormy Daniels' former lawyer, Keith Davidson, and Trump’s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen. “There is a group of them who have essentially made her very uncomfortable — whether you want to call it blackmail or just sharp elbows in litigation — that if she moved forward with this, it was her up against a billion dollar company.”

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The former Playboy model finalized the $150,000 deal in 2016 after Trump had sealed the Republican presidential nomination, one of several so-called hush agreements involving the president that have been brought to light in recent months.

Stris said Cohen — nor anyone else purporting to represent the president — has reached out to McDougal, and he still isn’t sure of the role Cohen played in arranging the deal for McDougal’s silence. He also obfuscated on whether McDougal had ever faced a tangible threat from anyone connected to Trump.

“I want to be very careful in the way I answer it because that is an important question,” he said. “This has been very difficult, and Karen has suffered a lot of abuse. There is no picture, there is no person who showed up in a parking lot and threatened her family. That is not the case. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that one person kind of going up against the National Enquirer and these other individuals had it easy.”

The news of the settlement, first reported by The New York Times, signals McDougal will be able to talk about her claims more freely without fear of legal repercussions for violating the terms of the deal. McDougal spoke out about her alleged relationship during a wide-ranging interview with CNN last month, claiming she had a 10-month affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. The White House has denied the allegations.

Under the settlement agreement, reached in court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, AMI is entitled to up to $75,000 in profits from stories about her alleged affair in the future.

Trump’s legal team is currently locked in a dispute with Daniels, the porn star who claims to have had a sexual encounter with the president over a decade ago. Cohen has acknowledged paying $130,000 in 2016 to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, in a deal to keep her quiet about the alleged affair.

Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, announced plans to file a defamation suit against the president on Wednesday after Trump questioned the validity of a sketch Daniels released Tuesday. That rendering depicts the man Daniels claims threatened her and her child in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011, telling Daniels to “leave Trump alone” and “forget the story” of her alleged affair with the president.

“A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!” Trump tweeted early Wednesday morning.

Stris said McDougal wouldn't hesitate to launch similar litigation against the president if he attacked her credibility online.

“If Donald Trump tweets tomorrow and starts saying that she's a liar, I feel pretty confident that action will be taken. She is going to defend herself,” Stris said. “Part of getting out of this contract is feeling like if she needs to defend herself, she can.”